How Much I've Spent on Business Coaching as a PT (Was It Worth It?)
- Morgan Meese, PT
- 3 days ago
- 6 min read
The short answer: since starting my cash based physical therapy practice in 2019, I've invested somewhere between sixty and eighty thousand dollars in business coaching for physical therapists, and here's the full honest breakdown of what I spent, what worked, what didn't, and what I'd tell my younger self if I could go back.
Mini courses. Group programs. One-on-one coaching. A high-level mastermind that costs more per year than PT school did.
And I'm reinvesting for another year.
This post is the honest accounting of all of it, not because I want to flex on spending, but because the information isn't always accessible and everyone who is seriously considering this decision deserves to know what investing in your own growth actually looks like, including the parts that didn't go the way I planned.
Key Takeaways:
Time is finite. Money is not. Every month without a real plan has a cost even if you can't see it
The most expensive program isn't automatically the best — fit matters more than price
Red and green flags exist in every coaching investment — know what to look for before you sign
You're never going to feel ready. Ready is a decision, not a feeling
The return on investment coaching delivers isn't just financial — it's time, momentum, and clarity
If you're a physical therapist or healthcare provider thinking about building your own practice, Join DPT to CEO and talk to someone who has been through every level of this journey.
What Have I Actually Spent on Business Coaching?
Here's the itemized breakdown over almost seven years of investing in my own growth as a practice owner and coach.
Mini courses first, probably around two thousand dollars across different programs and downloads. The first industry-specific program I bought was a physical therapy practice focused DIY course for seventeen hundred dollars. After that came a few different group programs ranging from three thousand to around eight and a half thousand dollars each. One ten thousand dollar program that I'll come back to in a minute. Another group experience with a couple of coaches around five thousand dollars. One-on-one coaching at two to five hundred dollars a session, which I did twice with two different coaches over a few years. And then my current mastermind investment at around twenty-two thousand dollars a year.
Add it all up and it's at least sixty thousand dollars, probably closer to seventy-five to eighty by the time you're reading this. When you break it down another way, that's roughly ten thousand dollars a year to learn how to generate a hundred thousand to a million dollars annually, and framed that way, the math on physical therapy business investment looks very different from the way most people approach it.
The Most Important Takeaway Before the Specifics
The single most important thing I want you to take from this post is this.
Time is a finite resource. Money is not.
You will always find a way to make more money, but you will never get back the time you spent trying to figure this out alone. Every month without a real business plan has a real cost, financially, emotionally, and in terms of the momentum you are not building while you wait. That is the honest accounting most small businesses and practice owners never do before deciding to keep waiting.
The Investment I Somewhat Regret
Let me be honest about my least favorite experience: it wasn't a bad program. It was a mismatch of business model and timing.
The other students were running businesses two stages ahead of mine with entirely different structures, and the standards were set for a level I genuinely hadn't reached yet. Part of that was on me too. I don't think I was mentally or emotionally ready to push myself to the level that physical therapy coaching program required for success. Wanting to be ready and actually being ready are two very different things.
What that experience clarified is that the return on investment coaching provides has almost nothing to do with price and almost everything to do with fit. I got more value and felt more accountable in the five thousand dollar programs than in the ten thousand dollar one. Fit matters more than price every single time.
The Investment That Changed Everything
My current mastermind is the best investment I've ever made, and also the most expensive by a significant margin. The community is full of team members and peers with similar values navigating similar challenges, and being in that room builds trust in a way that no solo journey ever could. My coach has real coach experience with businesses like mine, knows my name, knows my goals, and genuinely cares about my development, not just as a business owner but as someone building real leadership skills. The accountability happens every single month without exception, and the focus extends far beyond tactics into who I'm becoming and how I'm showing up in every area of my life.
That's the difference between buying information and buying into a room of people committed to helping you become someone capable of holding the level of success you're pursuing. That's also what we're building inside DPT to CEO. Whether you're just learning how to start a cash based practice or trying to break through a revenue ceiling, the room you're in matters as much as the curriculum you're following.
When Is Business Coaching Actually Worth It?
When it comes to knowing when to invest in coaching, the three markers I'd look for are these.
You've validated the model and know the concept works. You have a specific problem, not just I need help, but I need help executing a niche marketing strategy that consistently attracts clients or I can't figure out how to structure pricing for a profitable practice. And you've reached the ceiling of what you can figure out alone. If you've exhausted free content and still don't know what step to take next, investing solves that immediately. Is business coaching worth it for people just starting out? Yes, and often more so than for people further along, because when you have zero revenue, the right investment doesn't sell you information. It sells you accountability.
Red Flags and Green Flags Worth Knowing
Red flags coaching program hunters should watch for: vague promises without specific outcome data to back them up, an investment clearly built for a business two stages ahead of or behind yours, and any sales process that feels like pressure rather than a genuine conversation about fit.
Green flags coaching program seekers should prioritize: a coach whose experience includes having done the thing they're actually teaching, a community full of people you'd genuinely want to be around, real accountability built into the structure rather than just a content library, and a coach who knows your name and your specific business well enough to give direction that actually fits where you are.
What I'd Tell My Younger Self
Invest earlier than you think you should.
There's a version of this journey where you spend years downloading free content, digital marketing guides, and mini courses, telling yourself you'll feel ready once you're a little further along. That version is more expensive than it looks, not in the money you're not spending, but in the time and momentum you're losing every month without a structured approach behind you.
Stop treating free downloads as equivalent to working inside a structured investment designed for cash based practices. They produce completely different outcomes. A PDF doesn't create accountability, doesn't give you someone to think alongside when things get hard, and doesn't put you in a room with other people navigating the exact same terrain.
For women entrepreneurs who've been told to wait until their practice is bigger before investing in themselves. For ADHD entrepreneurs who need real structure and accountability to execute rather than just consume. For anyone trying to build a telehealth physical therapy model or in-person practice through free resources alone and wondering why the pieces aren't coming together.
Physical therapy entrepreneurship requires real investment. As Morgan Meese always says: the question isn't whether you can afford to invest in coaching. The real question is whether you can afford another year without it.
Join DPT to CEO and let's build it together.
Listen to this episode on my podcast!
Comments